No one disagrees that good leadership is key to organisational effectiveness and social and economic prosperity. But the one-million-dollar question is — what makes for a good leader?
If you were to ask Top HR professionals in global organisations what constitutes a good leader, they would not start with academic qualifications or intellectual brilliance as their primary focus. They will assume that such criteria are a given for all the applicants or prospective candidates.
Instead, their focus will be on the “soft skills” and will likely outline a set of distinct personal characteristics that the leader or aspiring future leader must have.
They would scrutinise the experience and leadership profile of the candidate. They would be looking for someone who is visionary, motivational, and inspirational. Who can lead the people in the organisation.
For any transformational change, and to drive impactful performance, one has to look for leaders who can understand, inspire and motivate everyone in the organisation.
The ability to motivate and inspire others is the most commonly cited characteristic that is considered critical when recruiting leaders. This is because the formal title, power, authority in a given position, and even the professional competency of a person does not guarantee that the person sitting in the position will be a good leader.
So, what are those characteristics that will make someone a great leader. For this article, I wish to highlight the three critical ones, as follows:
• Showing care: The ability to earn and keep the loyalty and trust of those whom they are leading. This means adding value to the lives, constantly, of those who are being lead.
The effective leader will be able to build the strong bond among the people that can survive mistakes, downturns, obstacles, challenges and intense competition that will inevitably arise.
It is said that people will not really care how much the leader knows, or where the leader intends to bring them, until they know that the leader really cares for them.
Leadership is about setting the right tone, about communication, about values and ethos, about what you stand for, and ultimately about trust. Building trust requires emotional intelligence and creating what is said as “trust dividends”.
• Providing meaning: The ability to provide and articulate a common purpose and meaning to all sorts of people that are being led. This is commonly called “the vision thing” which articulates the highest aspiration or desired end state of an organisation or group of people.
The vision drives people forward, compels them to keep on trying, energises them to achieve the impossible, and pulls them in the direction of the desired end state.
Vision has therefore to be common for everyone. Providing meaning is both a rational and an emotional thing, touching the intellect and emotional dimensions.
Feelings and emotions are the driving force of our lives and are powerful drivers and motivators. How do you know you are alive? It is because you can still think, feel and display emotions.
• Communicating to inspire: Communication is what leaders do. They communicate before, during and after decisions are made.
I would rate communication as one of the most important characteristics that a good leader must have. It is what leaders do in order to achieve results because the actual ‘doing’ is being performed or undertaken by others, experts and competent people, in all the disciplines needed to achieve the desired outcome.
Key to leadership communication is the building and maintaining of trust. That has to be a strategic goal in all leadership communications. Easy to say, but not easy to do.
People will not only judge the message but also the messenger. The authenticity of the leader is therefore crucial. People will not commit if they do not trust or believe that the leader has integrity.
I would say that inspiring and good leadership is one of, if not, the greatest intangible asset that any organisation can own.
Leadership drives all the critical energy in an organisation — the employees’ emotions, the collaborative and supportive culture needed in the organisation, the effectiveness of execution of the strategies and plans of the organisation, the desire to achieve excellence in the people, the level of responsiveness and loyalty of customers, the nature of support of the local community, the reputation, perception, and branding of the organisation.
This powerful but intangible asset is deployed through extraordinary communication skills and effective engagement competencies. Hence, we talk about charismatic leaders.
The writer is a regular contributor to New Sarawak Tribune.
